Wednesday, 5 November 2014

Maximus are back in the news because the government have given them a £500 million contract for "Work Capability Assessments", taking over the job of harrassing the sick from Atos.

So I am republishing this piece that I wrote in the Morning Star on July 12th 2012

Maximus

Solomon Hughes

Morning Star 12th July 2012

The
government's work programme is failing. Currently only 24 per cent of
those on the scheme are leaving benefits, and some of those are being
forced out without even getting jobs. This is below government estimates
for the number who would find work without the scheme - the programme
is literally worse than nothing. There are two problems with Iain Duncan
Smith's £5 billion plan to "help" the unemployed by hiring big
"benefit-busting" contractors. First, it's the wrong scheme. Second,
he's got the wrong people running it. The work programme is based on the
idea that there is something wrong with the unemployed - maybe they
can't find jobs because they have forgotten how to get out of bed. But
rising unemployment is mostly caused by lack of jobs, not issues with
the unemployed. Investing £5bn on schemes creating actual jobs - like
housebuilding - would cut unemployment by far more. There is a case at
the margins for an employability programme - some people really do get
knocked out of the labour market and need help to get back in. Training,
coaching and some job subsidies can help. But Duncan Smith has hired
the wrong people to help the unemployed. The big work programme
contractors are almost universally better at helping themselves to
profits than helping the unemployed. All studies so far conducted show
that public-sector Jobcentre staff do a better job. I've been writing
about bogus "benefit-busting" firms A4e and Working Links for a few
years. But there are plenty of firms you've never heard of that squeeze
millions from the government to help the unemployed but only help
themselves. Enough in fact for me to run a short series on the subject.
This week, step forward Maximus. Maximus
has a low profile, a name like a sex aid and contracts worth £176
million running the work programme in west London and south-east
England. It's probably just as well that this US firm is unknown in
Britain, as its record across the pond includes fraud and failure on a
major scale. In 2007 Maximus
paid a $30.5m (£20m) fine in the US over charges that it had cheated
Medicaid, the state-funded health service for the poor, by making tens
of thousands of false claims. The fraud took place in a
"payment-by-results" contract. Washington state had hired Maximus to make savings in its spending - Maximus and the state shared the money claimed from the national Medicaid system for children in foster care. But Maximus,
in a plan called "operation lightning rod," increased its income by
making claims for children who had not received medical care. After the
fraud was uncovered Maximus
said it would not sign any more "contingency-based contracts" where it
is paid from "savings" in state expenditure. But Duncan Smith's
"payment-by-results" work programme is just such a "contingency based
contract." Also in 2007 the state of Connecticut sued Maximus over the "abject failure" of its computer system. Maximus was supposed to run a police database, including real-time police record checks. Connecticut's attorney-general said that "Maximus
minimised quality, squandering millions of taxpayer dollars and
shortchanging law enforcement agencies." He said the database could
"make a life-and-death difference to police and other law enforcers," so
the failure was unacceptable. In 2010 Maximus settled the case for $2.5m (£1.6m). Maximus's
performance over here is less dramatic, but still unimpressive. The
firm got some benefit-busting contracts from the last Labour government.
It never managed to get a "good" grade from Ofsted for these schemes.
The last full inspection by Ofsted of its "workstep" programme for the
disabled jobless in western England gave the firm the second-lowest
possible grade, "satisfactory." Inspectors noted that "the proportion of
participants leaving the programme without progressing into open
employment is high." A 2010 follow-up inspection found "insufficient
progress" on half of its targets. As the work programme fails, there are
calls to bail out the scheme with extra cash. But as Maximus's record shows, this would be throwing good money after bad.

Tuesday, 14 October 2014

With Evo Morales re-elected in Bolivia because of his socialist policies, I am republishing this 2009 article based on FOIA docs that is a reminder that our own New Labour government did all it could for BP and British Gas to throw Morales off course- they failed -

A
sinister minister;Howells's push to clear the way for British profiteers inBolivia

Solomon Hughes

Morning Star

February 6, 2009

When shops find out that something they
sold contained unexpected dangers, they issue a product recall.

From time to time,
small notices in a newspaper carry announcements such as "customers who
purchased Binky the Rabbit children's T-shirts from our store should
discontinue use and return them to us for a complete refund. Some units
unexpectedly contain barbed wire and poisonous ants."

Our government should
now be issuing a product recall through its embassies. "Customers who were
persuaded by Britain and its G7 partners to use neoliberal policies should
discontinue their use. These may cause unexpected economic instability, wipe
away value and require emergency nationalisations."

Britain's foreign
policy, like its economic policy, was based on worshipping banks which
unfortunately turned out to be tin gods. Well, less than tin gods, because at
least if they were you could melt down the metal and sell it on. By contrast,
the banks were based on completely imaginary values, although they made very
real transfers of wealth from the poor to the rich.

This looks most stark
in Britain's relations with Latin America.

Bolivia, for example, made efforts to drag its citizens from poverty by
nationalising their natural resources rather than being dictated to by the
market.

This enraged British
politicians, because our companies were trying hard to exploitBolivia- Britain's United Utilities tried to
run off with Bolivian water at Cochabamba, while BP andBritish Gas tried to make off with the country's
hydrocarbons. This inspired urban uprisings that putBolivia'ssocialist
government in power, much to the regret of our Labour government.

Papers that I obtained
from the Foreign Office under the Freedom of Information Act cover then foreign
office minister Kim Howells's 2007 visit toBolivia.
As I showed last year, the papers reveal that Howells used his time not to
exploreBolivia'santi-poverty programmes or to
understand how a socialist government could be so consistently popular.
Instead, Howells nagged the Evo Morales government about nationalisation.

As the papers record,
"Dr Howells used his meeting with Foreign Minister Choquehuanca to express
our concern about investment security inBolivia, after the recent wave of
nationalisations of European-owned companies in telecommunications and
hydrocarbons.

"Boliviahad to compete with the rest of the
world for investment. Investors needed to know that Bolivian investment rules
would be consistent over the next 10 years. Private investment was, as in the
UK, a key resource if the government wished to achieve priorities such as
poverty reduction."

Well, as Britain has
now been forced into its own emergency nationalisations, carried out in a
British panic rather than with Bolivian planning, it seems obvious that Howells
owes David Choquehuanca an apology.

However, the Foreign
Office papers also show why being new Labour means never saying sorry - the
documents show that Howells did not make a fraternal visit to the people ofBolivia.
Instead, he came as an emissary of BP andBritish Gas.

One "steering
brief" for Howells says: "Following the 1 May nationalisation of the
hydrocarbons industries, which affected Shell, Ashmore and BP, the meeting with
Choquehuanca is also an opportune time to discuss investment security."

Another preparatory
paper notes that Howells would meet Choquehuanca and President Morales.

With Choquehuanca, Howells
could "have a chance to make clear how the recent government measures and
rhetoric, and the uncertainty over judicial security, act as a disincentive for
potential foreign investors."

With Morales, "Dr
Howells might, if there is time, also care to mention the nationalisation
process, and how it is sending negative signals to international
investors."

If Howells had any
honesty, he would now have to visit Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson to warn
them against their nationalisations.

Not content with representing
British businessmen againstBolivia'sgovernment, the British embassy also
organised a rally of discontented Bolivian businessmen as well.

Howells's visit
included a talk with various Bolivian rightwingers who offered "a
pessimistic message from economic and political analysts." Nobody was
invited from the working-class suburbs of El Alto to deliver a positive message
about Morales reform.

Howells then ganged up
with the European Union to try to bullyBoliviaback into BP's arms.

The Foreign Office
documents record: "Dr Howells' visit usefully coincided with the visit of
the EU Commission Director General for External Relations, Eneko Landaburu, who
gave an equally robust private and public message on investment security to the
Bolivian authorities after meeting EU and hydrocarbons company
representatives."

Howells also used the
local newspapers to moan at Morales.

"Dr Howells used
his La Razon interview to make similar points (headline: 'This is a country
with great investment insecurity'):Bolivianeeded to open up to the world;
investor confidence was one essential condition ofBoliviamaking progress in its key
goals."

I am pleased to say
thatBolivia'sforeign minister sent Howells away
with a flea in his ear, as "Choquehuanca admitted thatBoliviawas taking a risk. But it was a
government priority - on a popular mandate - forBoliviato take back control of its natural
resources 'after 500 years of pillage by foreigners.'

"The new
constitution, once passed, guaranteed long-term investment, within the context
of a strong state."

British ambassador toBoliviaNigel Baker summed up Howells's visit
with a sentence that is in equal parts comic and threatening.

He wrote: "Visits
like that of Dr Howells are essential in getting our messages across, but also
in flagging up the dangers faced by an inward-lookingBolivia.
Drugs, energy security, investment security are all at risk ifBoliviagoes the wrong way. (Information
redacted)."

The idea that
credit-crunch Britain knows the "right way" to sendBoliviaseems silly. But the way that a
secret, "redacted" sentence follows the possibility ofBoliviagoing the "wrong way" is,
given the history of Latin America, downright sinister.

With Evo Morales set to win a third term as Bolivian president, I am republishing this 2006 article based on FOIA papers that shows how New Labour sell-outs - in the shape of Brian Wilson - helped Morales win by betraying their own principles. New Labour loved BP and British Gas too much to see why Morales was popular.

Solomon Hughes,
Morning Star, April 21 2006.

When Bolivians elected their radical new president Evo Morales
last year, the Foreign Office congratulated him on his "decisive
victory."

The British government deserves some of the
congratulations as well - it helped Morales move from his rented single room
into the presidential palace. But it did not mean to do it.

Britain helped Morales's Movement for Socialism
get elected by pressuring his predecessors to stick with the unpopular
privatisation of the country's oil and gas. Morales's opposition to these
British-backed policies swept him into power.

Documents released to me under the Freedom of
Information Act show that Labour ministers threatened Bolivian MPs with legal
action and investment strikes if they stopped favourable treatment of British
multinationals.

As Morales won his votes by opposing these
policies, the Foreign Office congratulations must have been delivered through
tightly, if elegantly, gritted teeth.

Most British newspaper stories about Morales
focus on his attitude to cocaine - presumably, because journalists like to
stick with an issue which they know a lot about rather than trying to figure
out howBoliviaworks.

Morales came to politics as a representative of
the cocaleros, farmers growing the coca leaf, and he still wants to let
Bolivians grow the plant for traditional remedies, in opposition to the US
"war on drugs."

However, letters from the British embassy inBoliviashow that, as Morales came closer and
closer to power, diplomats focused on his attitude to less glamorous products,
specifically oil and gas.

Since the mid-1990sBoliviafollowed a World Bank-backed
privatisation programme, including handing hydrocarbons - oil and gas - to
foreign firms.

Large hydrocarbon resources were discovered
after privatisation and these pools of oil and gas could fund major social
reforms, but they are in private hands - a point that finally made Morales
president. However, Labour ministers were putting all their efforts in the
opposite direction.

In 2002, Morales was narrowly beaten in an
election by President Lozada, a man commonly called "the Gringo"
because he was raised in the US and speaks Spanish with a US accent.

Lozada backed Bolivian hydrocarbon
privatisation.

He particularly supported a plan from
businessmen in what is called the Pacific LNG consortium. Two UK firms,British Gas andBritish
Petroleum lead this consortium and wanted to pump Bolivian gas via Chile to the
United States. Britain made sure that the Gringo kept to this gas plan.

In 2002, Energy Minister Brian Wilson visitedBolivia. At the
time, I asked both the Foreign Office and Wilson if they were going toBoliviato boost the Pacific LNG scheme. They
both said that they were not. They claimed that the visit was to "offer any help with a new regulatory
framework for gas" rather than boost British businesses' grip on
Bolivian resources.

However, papers released under the Freedom of
Information Act tell a different story. Wilson wrote toBolivia'sindustry minister saying: "Thank you for your letter ... inviting me to
visit you inBoliviato discuss hydrocarbons. The Bolivian
hydrocarbons industry is very important to
British gas companies and I am keen to support British investments in
your country.

"I
am considering a visit toBolivialater this year with the purpose of
helping British companies secure more business in this important market."

A note from his officials says: "A visit needs to have the involvement
and support of key British gas companies."

Wilson visitedBoliviawith a host of British businessmen,
including local British Gas boss Rick
Waddell, an ex-US army major who used to work for Enron.

Briefings for that visit from the Department of
Trade and Industry say that the minister must emphasise that British Gas “is very keen to develop as quickly as
possible" the scheme.

The briefings show that Britain was aware that a
Bolivian announcement in favour of the Pacific LNG scheme could be unpopular
and that "the packaging of the
decision will need careful management to avoid a public outcry,"
especially the plan for foreign firms to send Bolivian gas to the US via their
national rival, Chile.

The papers note that "a fierce campaign against the Chilean route has been organised by
indigenous groups and trade unions."

After Wilson's visit, this "fierce campaign" organised mass
demonstrations inBolivia'scapital, La Paz. However, President
Lozada's forces were fiercer - they shot dead 60 protesters before "the
Gringo" fled to Miami in disgrace.

After Lozada's fall, the British kept pressingBoliviaon oil and gas. Lozada's partner
Carlos Mesa became president. He tried to contain popular anger overBolivia'snatural resources by imposing a new
tax on energy firms.

However, a 2004 DTI briefing for Foreign Office
Minister Mike O'Brien to help him greet a delegation of Bolivian MPs
recommended that he threaten them with a lawsuit and investment strike over
these taxes.

The briefing says that the taxes represent a
"wholly new philosophy of increasing
state control over the whole oil and gas chain," suggesting that this
is a bad thing. The papers suggest warning the Bolivians that "BG/BP suggest that key investors
consider the draft legislation in its current form would breach existing
contractual rights, disrupt further development of Bolivian reserves and may
lead to legal action by them."

The ministers' briefing also says that the new
laws would cause "a freeze by them
on current and future investment." In the end, Mesa's failure to press
down on foreign oil and gas firms was one of the main reasons for Morales's
decisive election victory last year.

Morales becoming president is an event that
would have excited many Labour ministers when they were young - he is the first
Bolivian Indian to win the top job. He campaigned under a socialist banner,
promised to undo World Bank-inspired privatisations and to halve his own
presidential salary while taxing the rich.

Ironically, Britain's Labour ministers helped
Morales win by standing against the ideas that they have abandoned but he still
holds.

Wednesday, 16 July 2014

In the Daily Mail Max Hastings protests against the sacking of Michael Gove as Education Secretary . Hastings says that Cameron has sacked Gove because he did not want to "face an election amid an ongoing war with teachers", and is angry NUT members will be "dancing round bonfires" having won a battle. Hastings says that "John Major did the same 20 years ago when he appointed, as Education Secretary, Gillian Shephard, herself a former schoolmistress in place of the abrasive John Patten"

I don't think Hastings knows how unflattering the comparison between Gove and Patten is:- Major sacked Patten because he more-or-less had a nervous breakdown and started gibbering about the need for more discussion of "Damnation" in the classroom.

I made the Patten/Gove comparison back in 2013 in this Morning Star article (maybe Hastings read it)

Morning Star

February 7, 2013 Thursday

Gove U-turn follows the Tory Patten

Solomon Hughes

Michael Gove's EBacc U-turn shows the Tories' supposed tough guy could face the fate of John Patten,
the Conservative's least successful education secretary. Gove's
education plans are very similar to Patten's. The Tories think Gove is a
front-bench hero, taking on teaching unions, bringing in the private
sector, sticking two fingers up at Labour and winning popular support.
But his EBacc backdown shows Gove might be as weak as Patten as well.
Opposition from the National Union of Teachers eventually drove Patten
into a bit of a breakdown, so he had to be gently removed from the
Department for Education HQ.

Gove also seems to be
overheating. His English baccalaureate would have replaced GCSEs. He
wanted a qualification to fail more pupils - kids who could do well in
one or other GCSE would fail the EBacc, which bundled several subjects
together. Just before abandoning the EBacc, Gove gave a crazy speech,
claiming Labour "want to be the Downton Abbey party" over the EBacc
because "they think working-class children should stick to the station
in life they were born into." Gove was trying to claim that his plans,
which were designed to trip up most schoolkids, were actually going to
help them. His rhetoric was getting shrill because opposition to the
EBacc went well beyond Labour. The teaching unions opposed them. So did
the universities and the qualifications regulator. Logically, following
Gove's U-turn, either he now believes in "Downton Abbey" politics, or
knows he was talking twaddle in the first place. Gove's weakness
surprises his Tory pals. They thought he was David Cameron's "most
successful reforming minister." But to me he has some similarities with
Patten who was education secretary in the John Major government between
1992 and 1994. Patten was such a failure that he is largely forgotten.
Most people confuse him with former environment secretary Chris Patten.
Chris was the blond one who became the head of the BBC Trust. John was
the one with brown hair in a kind of Brideshead floppy style. John Patten
always had trouble making the right impression, according to his former
girlfriend, author Lucinda Lambton. She called him "the slimiest
skeleton in my cupboard." She said that in the 1990s when he walked into
the same room as her she "felt sick" and had to leave as he had been
"repellently smooth." She told a friend: "In my greasy past, he is the
biggest grease spot of all." Many of us feel the same way about Gove.
Patten also failed to impress the teaching unions. He tried to take them
on over pay - and failed. In his autobiography Major wrote that Patten
was "rather worn down by it," to the point where "his health suffered
and I decided he needed a sabbatical." Patten was widely rumoured to
have suffered a nervous breakdown. He always had a bit of an unhinged
side. He wrote a high-profile article claiming that "dwindling belief in
redemption and damnation has led to a loss of fear of the eternal
consequences of goodness and badness," that youngsters were out of
control because they did not fear the Devil and hell. Gove, who was
groomed by Rupert Murdoch to sound off in the Times, is also prone to
making ludicrous, overblown statements. Major sacked Patten and sent him
to the back benches, his ministerial career over. But Gove is
systematically reviving Patten's policies. Patten made a fool of himself
by describing leading educationalist Tim Brighouse as a "nutter."
Brighouse sued for defamation and Patten had to pay out £100,000. Nobody
has sued Gove yet, but his speeches about the "educational elite" are
increasingly hysterical. Patten wanted schools to opt out of local
authority control. He wanted centrally funded schools answerable to a
committee that he set up, stuffed with Tory-funding businessmen. It
flopped. Gove's free schools and wild expansion of the academy scheme
follow the same lines. And Gove has appointed Tory-funding businessman
John Nash as a minister to speed up schools privatisation. Patten
launched a "licensed teacher" scheme. He was convinced that teacher
training colleges were soaked in the "fashionable ideas of the 1960s."
He wanted to send people with a business background straight into the
classroom to learn on the job without the influence of the ungodly
radicals he thought infested the colleges. It flopped. But Gove has
hired Charlie Taylor, an Eton chum of Cameron's, to run a copy-cat
scheme called School Direct, which will also try and throw teachers
straight into school, bypassing teacher training courses. Gove wants to
put partly qualified people from business backgrounds in the classroom.
He models his policies on the Patten pattern. History shows that
determined resistance can give Gove the Patten treatment. After all,
Cameron's government is weaker than Major's. But Gove has a secret
weapon - Labour. Between 1997 and 2010 Labour also aped Patten's
policies. Their academy programme copied Patten's schools plan. They
introduced schools-based teacher training, the GTP which also performed
badly. This blunts resistance to Gove's schemes. Worst of all, Labour's
education spokesman Stephen Twigg still believes in these Tory-lite
policies. He is the most new Labour and least effective performer on
Labour's front bench. He barely opposes Gove because he mostly agrees
with him. There are two ways to exploit Gove's weakness - an easy way
and a hard way. The easy way is to sack Twigg and replace him with
someone who believes in teachers, is a friend to the teaching unions and
backs local education authorities. If Twigg stays in place, then the
unions and anti-academy campaigners will have to do it by themselves.
It's a harder road, but it is still possible. When it comes to Gove,
Labour need to decide if they want to be part of the problem or part of
the solution

Tuesday, 17 June 2014

The frightening advance of ISIS fighters in Iraq has brought back
questions about the 2003 war and

Unfortunately it has also brought back people writing rubbish about Iraq
in the Times – something that happened a lot in 2002 and 2003.

In the Times (17th June 2014) Hugo Rifkind , who marched against the war back
then, argues that the war's opponents should notsay “We told you so!". Actually he accuses
people of ‘trilling’ this, so he is
obviously annoyed about people who don’t write for the Times being right. Rifkind
says he doesn’t “remember that they did”
and that “I don't remember predictions of
chaos, sectarianism and failure” and “I'm
pretty certain that's not what we were marching about”.

Of
course, people were marching against an invasion for a range of reasons. But
they weren’t, on the whole, marching because they thought war would be orderly
and successful. The anti-war case usually relies on the idea that war causes
destruction, chaos and social conflict (mostly because it does).

The
pro-war side had such a variety of bad arguments for the war – often relying on
lies and rubbish pumped out by the Times – WMD ! Saddam in league with Obama !
Liberation ! –that people arguing against the war had to make many cases.

But
the case about chaos and sectarianism was widely made. So for example

The Daily
Mirror had a major article by Denis Healey in February 2003 arguing

“WAR ON IRAQ WILL BE TOTAL DISASTER”

If anything Healey overemphasised the possible chaos
and sectarianism, but he was on the right lines, writing

“The most likely scenario
is that there will be a civil war between the Kurds, the Shia and the Sunni
Moslems and it will spread over into neighbouring countries like Saudi Arabia,
a very close ally of the West, and Iran, Syria and even Jordan. The Jordanian
government warned Tony Blair about this only last week”

I
put this to Hugo and he said I was “cherry picking”. As if an article in the
multi-million selling Daily Mirror by a former Foreign Secretary was obscure.

They
were hardly alone – just search any newspaper database on the words “ Chaos”
and “Iraq” in the months before the war , and you’ll find plenty of results.

Think
also of the many references to an Iraq war becoming “Like the Vietnam war” :
They weren't made because the war’s opponents thought Iraq would be orderly, or
a“cakewalk”

It
is also important to note that what went wrong with Iraq didn’t all happen
during the invasion. It was the occupation that tore Iraq apart, as the
occupiers systematically weakened the Iraq state and encouraged sectarianism.
The disbanding of the army and banning Baathists from office was just part of
this. The US and UK occupiers encouraged sectarianism to split the rebellious Iraqi’s
who didn’t want them remaining in Iraq after Saddam’s fall . They weakened the
state so that it would not present a possible threat to the occupiers (which is
why the supposedly rebuilt Iraqi army only got tanks, armoured cars and an
airforce very much later).

We
saw this unfold in front of our eyes – the looting, the botched “reconstruction”.
At any point even those who supported the war could have protested about this,
and our governments could have changed their course. Indeed many British army
officers in Iraq raised exactly these complaints. It wasn’t just about warning
about chaos and sectarianism before the war, it was about acknowledging they
were happening during the occupation, and trying to do something about it.

So
I found Hugo’s ‘don’t say I told you so
‘attitude really mystifying.

Particularly
where he writes “I remember a whole bunch
of utter guff about Halliburton and oil”. The role of
Halliburton, and Bechtel and Blackwater and all the contractors in the
occupation was an important source of the chaos: By handing over Iraqi
“reconstruction”, including water and electricity and gas and ‘security’ to
Western contractors – and paying them with Iraqi oil money – the occupiers
weakened the Iraq state, and helped spread the chaos. Especially as they botched
the job. The lack of water and electricity and sewage and security all added to
the chaos. This was hardly a secret. The US were advertising their wild plan to
privatise Iraq before the war. Hugo didn’t understand it, perhaps. It’s odd
when journalists proudly display their ignorance, when I thought finding stuff
out was one of our key skills.

I
think at one point I did grasp why Hugo can’t remember the predictions of
chaos, even though I can.

He
writes that “I remember fevered debate
about whether we, the West, had the right to remake the world in our image.”

Now
the “Noecons” were pretending they were going to make Iraq into a modern free
market liberal democracy. And apparently Hugo and his circled believed they
meant it. And had a “fevered debate”
about whether this was a good idea.

But
plenty of people sussed out, without the need for a "fevered debate", that this was just window dressing on some crazy
imperial adventure. When Dick Cheney and his pals made those kind of noises, we
didn’t believe them. We thought that sinister Dr Strangelove types were more
likely to do what the US had done in Vietnam or El Salvador or Nicaragua. That
there would be death squads and chaos and shady types trying to get rich from
blood. People thought George Bush was a cowboy, but apparently Hugo’s friends thought
he really could deliver a functioning Iraq. They just worried if that was the
right choice.

The
problem is that Hugo tries to make his very odd circle of pals, the kind of
people who took the Noecons seriously, and make them “we”, make them stand in
for all the anti-War people. And they just didn’t.

It’s
the same naivety that makes Hugo want to “rescue” liberal intervention from the
“tragedy” of Iraq.

Tuesday, 3 June 2014

British reporting of the Euro elections won’t help
anyone make sense of what has happened in the EU. Great clouds of Farage
gleefully fanned around by Fleet Street obscure the view . A deep commitment by
the news papers not to report what happens in Southern Europe doesn’t help. The
gains for the far right were truly worrying, but there were also gains by the
left.

But it is easy to paint a fair picture in broad
strokes. The details are different in each nation, depending how and how much
the different parties have seized on the crisis. But the big picture looks like
this.

The crisis has broken many people away from the main
centre parties. Stagnant wages, social cuts, businesses going bust make people
very unhappy. And that makes them unhappy with the mainstream parties –
Conservative and Social Democrat – who were in power when the crisis hit. They
blame the mainstream parties for creating the crisis, especially as many of the
politicians personally enriched themselves in the process: During the boom, bankers
were allowed to invest in risky, speculative and dangerous schemes – including
completely fraudulent and artificial ones. Local politicians and their business
friends enriched themselves – often corruptly – in these schemes. Few were
prosecuted when they fell apart in the financial crisis, but jobs, social
spending and small businesses did suffer in the slump.

Former Tory voters – both suburban middle class and
working class Tories – are more likely to vote to the right of the mainstream.
Former Socialist voters are more likely to break to the left. The right wing
parties blame immigrants for the crisis, the left wing ones put blame on the
banks. The proportion of people breaking from the mainstream parties is not
fixed, and it is the job of active socialist campaigners to shift the balance in
favour of the left wing break.

In Northern Europe the right wing parties did better,
in Southern Europe the left made more breakthroughs: This reflects an economic
as well as a geographic reality, and for this map, Ireland heads southward.
This puts pressure on the EU in both cases, but for very different reasons. In
Northern Europe, right wing parties like UKIP or the Front National blame the
EU for immigration. In Southern Europe people blame the EU for forcing the
banker’s agenda. This part of the picture is barely described on the UK TV news
or on the British front pages. Words like “Troika” and “Debt” and
“Restructuring” which are central to the Euro elections are absent from too
much British reporting. The crisis was caused by the banks, but the solution
has been to cut ordinary people’s living standards to bail the banks out,
leaving the bankers rich and dominant. In Greece or Spain or Portugal, the EU
is the instrument used to force people to pay the banker’s price: Southern
Europeans hateThe “Troika” made up of
the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International
Monetary Fund which arranged the bail-out. This will sound odd in the UK,
because the press haven’t really explained how the bailout works for Southern
Europe. How can people in Southern Europe hate the bail outs ? The answer is,
because they bailed out the bankers at the people’s cost: The bail outs were
given so that EU countries could pay their debts to banks: In effect the bankers
were bailed out. The “Troika “ did negotiate “haircuts”, where the bankers
agreed to take less than the full debt (because without “haircuts”, the debts were
unpayable and they would have faced default). But they negotiated far harsher
social “haircuts”, enforcing cuts in social spending and austerity to fund the
bailouts. The EU, as part of the Troika, are a mechanism to take money of
ordinary Spanish or Portuguese or Greek pockets and pass them on to the banking
system. The Troika is enforcing wage cuts, spending cuts and privatisation to
bail out the banks.

Hence the growth of Left wing parties who are angry at
the EU in Southern Europe. This includes results for groups based on the traditional Communist
leftor some variety of the “new left”
or some combination of the both . Newer organisations included Syriza in Greece,
Podemos in Spain or O Bloco in Portugal.
More traditional Communist Party-ish organisations like Izquierda Unida (united Left) in Spain

Some standoutsof the Euro Elections

(1)If
you want votes, get active in the streets – Syrizaand Podemos built whole new parties not just
by issuing manifestos , but by a hard , broad struggle of demonstrations,
strikes and meetings.Podemos were able to relate to the "Indignados" who occupied Spanish squares in a rebellion over the economic crisis. In the process Podemos helped make the Indignados much more a part of the left. In turn, this gave a new language to the left:- A party called "Yes We Can" formed out of the "Indignant" is quite clearly finding a new way of talking about social change.

(2)Italy
was the worst “Southern European “ result for the left, with Beppo Grillo’s
“Five Star” movement filling the space that the left took in neighbouring countries.
Grillo’s party is a bit like if voters got so sick of politicians that they
voted for a‘Topical Comedy Panel Show’
instead: Sneery, but are they prettyright wing (Jimmy Carr?) or sort of left-ish
(Phil Jupitus?). Grillo is making friends with Farage, so it looks more Jimmy
Carr.

(3)Even
among bad results there are good moments – Italy elected Three MEPs from a party called “Anther Europe With
Alex Tsipras”. Tsipras is the leader of the Greek party Syriza – so this is the
equivalent of British voters electing four French socialist radicals as the
MEP’s for London or Manchester or Leeds or Bristol.

(4)Even
in the EU “North” there were some good results . The Front National winning the
French EU elections was a very bad problem: Marine Le Pen’s party are full fat
fascism compared to the semi-skimmed right wing populism of UKIP. But even in
France the left had some good results. Melenchon’s Left Front had four seats. France’s “Green” party EELV,
which is a left-ish leaning party took 6 seats.

(5)One
of the more standout results from Northern Europe was the first Feminist Initiative
MEP elected. Soraya Post is the first MEP ever elected under the “Feminist”
banner. Her election slogan was “Out with Racists and in with Feminists”. In a
charmingly Swedish touch, the Feminist Initiative has been built with the hard
work of many members , aided by a donation of around £80k from Benny from Abba.

So beyond the headlines about extreme right success,
there were also gains for the left : Gains made by new
left wing groups who were able to use new language, form new alliances and find new ways of relating to movements on the street.

Monday, 2 June 2014

Kellogg's were criticised in Channel 4's Dispatches today (June 2014) for using "Social Marketing" to target young kids with their sickly sugary cereal Krave . I caught them up to similar slimy behaviour in 2010

First
published :

Morning
Star

February
19, 2010 Friday

Feature - Kellogg's: a taste of dog farts;

Solomon Hughes explains how the government's big
anti-obesity drive is being undermined by the involvement of big business

BYLINE: Solomon Hughes

Kellogg's is a "partner" in a Department of
Health anti-obesity drive. And it is just about to launch a campaign to
persuade young people to chomp through Krave, one of the most calorific
breakfast cereals available.

Kellogg's is part of the Department of Health's
Change4Life campaign. The cereal firm funds a few breakfast and swimming clubs
and puts out the odd advert telling people to "move more."

Of course people need to move a whole lot more to
shake off the calories squeezed into the company's sugary products.

In return, Health Minister Alan Johnson puts out
statements praising Kellogg's for helping to "tackle the growing
problem of obesity."

Most importantly, Kellogg's wards off any difficult
regulations. The government is not going insist that its anti-obesity partners
cover foods with awkward "not good for you" labels or launch a public
health campaign that embarrasses the food giants.

So Kellogg's puts out Change4Life messages about the
need to "eat better." But this month sees the launch of its Krave advertising
drive to persuade teens to eat worse.

Krave is aimed at 16 to 24-year-olds and is made of
"crispy cereal shells with a chocolate hazelnut filling."

Kellogg's claims it is "unleashing a new breed
of cereal" with these unhealthy little parcels stuffed with a
Nutella-like paste.

But in fact Krave is already available in France under
the brand name Tresor. It comes in at around 440 calories every hundred grams -
more calorific even than existing Kellogg's morning monstrosities such as Coco
Rocks. They are 29 per cent sugar, 16 per cent fat.

Kellogg's got a company called Landor to market Tresor
in France. Landor's data sheet on Tresor shows what Kellogg's wants to do with
its chocolate paste parcels in Britain.

Landor says: "Teenagers are progressively
rejecting the cereals of their childhood and opting for the bread and a spread
option like their parents."

Kellogg's doesn't think 16 to 24-year-olds should eat
adult food. So it wants to launch a war on toast.

Perhaps it will advertise Krave with the slogan
"Don't grow up, eat our gunk." Or "Be a baby forever with
Krave."

Kellogg's also wants people to suck on their processed
lumps all day, because "Tresor has become a favorite snack for
teenagers and no longer just a breakfast cereal."

Kellogg's claims to be backing the Change4 Life campaign,
which suggests we "try replacing the unhealthy snacks with ones you
don't mind them eating - fruit, oatcakes, breadsticks and frozen fruity
ice-cubes."

However, the snack it really wants you to eat is a
mixture of cereal flours, sugar, plant oil and dyes.

In the mind of Kellogg's, young adults are in the
front line of the war against bread.

"We've focused on creating a brand that
genuinely answers the demand of this market."

To get young adults craving Krave, Kellogg's is going
for super-trendy "social marketing." Instead of just advertising the
stuff on telly, it wants to push Krave on Facebook, by email campaigns, on
message boards and the like, in a somewhat desperate effort to catch "the
yoof."

Krave will also be advertised at music festivals and
universities, which all suggests something a bit cynical in the marketing.

In France Kellogg's targeted young adults with the
harmless name Tresor - or treasure.

But why would British teens crave cereal
and want to cram it in their mouth at odd times of day or at music festivals?

Maybe this shows I am being cynical rather than Kellogg's
marketers, but I know Munchies wasn't available as a trademark. Perhaps they
felt "stoned" or "muntered" might be a bit too obvious.

Some of Krave's appearances on "social
media" have already backfired. Sometimes attempts to make products look
trendy just makes them look lame.

Constant messages - or spam - about Krave on student
web boards irritated their readers so much that actual students started posting
anti-marketing messages, including: "Hey student chums! I just tried
this new Krave cereal by Kellogg's! It tasted really bad and made me throw up
in my mouth a little."

And "After trying Kellogg's Krave I had to
bleach my tongue to get the taste out of it. Gross! Do not buy this cereal."

And the delightful "I had a spoonful of new
Kellogg's Krave cereal and it tasted like a dog had farted directly into my
mouth."

A more sober judgement by one young taster in the
Grocer magazine, who was previewing the product for shopkeepers.

She noted that the cereal "goes a bit slimy
when you add milk."

To which I can only add that government anti-obesity
policy goes a bit slimy when you add corporations.